


nothing is forever (so let's do this again)

by istalria



Series: i swear i only fell for you on accident [4]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: F/M, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Post-Canon, Secret Relationship, the yearning is strong with this one, they're not good at feelings but they're gonna LEARN
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:35:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24413692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istalria/pseuds/istalria
Summary: The rules of their arrangement are simple.(Don't tell the others. Don’t leave marks. Don’t get attached.)They break them anyway.
Relationships: (background), (mentioned) - Relationship, Jeremy Knox/Jean Moreau, Kevin Day/Allison Reynolds, Matt Boyd/Danielle "Dan" Wilds, Neil Josten & Allison Reynolds, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Series: i swear i only fell for you on accident [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1759423
Comments: 62
Kudos: 198





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this one got LONG! buckle in folks, we've got a wild ride ahead of us ;)
> 
> Also, shoutout to [Too_Many_Books_Too_Little_Time](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Too_Many_Books_Too_Little_Time/pseuds/Too_Many_Books_Too_Little_Time) for bringing my attention to the song "Figure This Out" by The Wrecks; I totally stole a line for the title because it fit super well!
> 
> This was initially only going to be one looong chapter, but I decided to break it into two for the sake of dramatic endings. Enjoy!

Movie night with the Foxes, while always hectic to some degree, becomes infinitely more pleasant after Dan gives in and bans the freshmen.

“Team bonding can only go so far,” she’d said grimly, tilting a beer to her lips. Matt wrapped a sympathetic arm around her shoulders, but none of the others had bothered to disguise their relief. Even Andrew, whose expression didn’t change when Dan announced she’d had enough of the freshmen, relaxed minutely; he was probably glad to be relieved of any off-court interaction with Jack, who’s been making a nuisance of himself since the summer.

Allison, for one, is much happier with their current arrangement—there’s only so much freshman drama the Foxes are willing to put up with before someone snaps, and she’d like to actually sit through an entire movie without a fight breaking out for once. This is the third time they’ve attempted to finish this particular film, and thirty minutes in, the odds of making it through are already looking up.

“Allison,” Nicky whines. “You should’ve warned me there was straight-person sex in this movie, I could’ve gone to get snacks or something.”

She shrugs, unrepentant. Across the room, Aaron sits up in his beanbag. “What’s wrong with straight-people sex?”

Out of Aaron’s line of vision, Nicky winks at Allison, and she smirks back at him.

“Everything,” Nicky says with an exaggerated shudder. “No one needs to see that.”

“It’s the quality that’s really appalling,” Dan says, probably to cut off Aaron’s rising indignation. “Like, have the producers ever had an orgasm before? ’Cause this is just fake as hell.”

Nicky points at her in triumph. Allison says, “Fifty bucks the director’s a man.”

Dan glances at the screen, where the actress is gasping and keening as her love interest lets out a loud grunt and makes several pronounced thrusts, and says, “I’m not taking that.”

Renee smiles into her glass of lemonade. Matt throws a handful of popcorn at the screen to a chorus of complaints from Nicky and Aaron, who likely don’t relish the idea of digging popcorn kernels out of their carpet once the rest of the Foxes go back to their own dorms. Kevin rolls his eyes and takes a long swig of his vodka soda.

After the third dramatic fight scene, Nicky proposes a drinking game, but it quickly devolves into a race to drunkenness. Dan and Matt tap their glasses together and take a shot for every needlessly sexual shot of the female lead in her impractical skintight catsuit, Aaron chugs his drink whenever a character gives or receives wildly inaccurate medical treatment, and Neil mutters under his breath every time a gun is handled incorrectly, but Andrew cuts him off after two shots of whiskey. Nicky generously offers to take Neil’s shots for him, and Allison understands why Andrew stopped Neil when Nicky starts slurring after ten minutes.

Allison just sips her tequila, ignoring Dan’s increasingly incoherent queries regarding her uncharacteristic restraint. 

When the movie finally ends, half the team is too drunk to leave the suite, and they silently agree to extend the night into a sleepover. Allison’s pretty sure Dan fell asleep on Matt before the credits stopped rolling, and Nicky is suspiciously quiet in his beanbag nest. Andrew calmly surveys the growing pile of blankets and tangled limbs on the floor, then gets to his feet and leaves the dorm without a word. Neil shoots a glance over his shoulder as he follows, waving at Allison, Renee, and Kevin before exiting behind him.

Allison’s phone buzzes against her thigh, and she glances at Matt and Dan to make sure they’re asleep before digging it out. 

_My room in 10?_

Allison bites her lip and types out, _What about A/N?_

_Roof._

She waits a respectable two minutes before replying. _Okay._

She slides the phone into the waistband of her yoga pants and grins at Renee. “So, how much do you wanna bet that Neil and Andrew are off hooking up somewhere?”

“Allison,” she rebukes gently, but a smile tugs at her lips.

“Oh, come on, you know it’s true. We just have to catch them in the act. I bet Kevin knows where they are, right, Kevin?”

Kevin casts a cool and impressively sober look in her direction. “I don’t know what they do with their free time.”

“Sure you don’t.”

He rolls his eyes and stands up—probably just so they have to look up at him, the bastard—giving them both a stern glare.

“I’m going to sleep,” he says. “You should both do the same. I don’t want anyone showing up to practice on Monday still hungover.”

He leaves before Allison can do more than raise her eyebrows at him. Renee’s completely sober, but that’s never excused her from Kevin’s lectures before.

“Dick,” she mutters after him.

Renee chuckles, but says, “He’s probably right, though. It wouldn’t be the first time that happened.”

“Kevin’s never right.”

“You didn’t drink much tonight,” Renee says, ignoring her petulant jibe. “Everything okay?”

Allison waves her hand airily. “Yeah, I’ve just had a headache all day. Didn’t want to add onto it, you know?”

“Do you feel alright?” Renee asks, and the concern in her voice makes guilt curl in Allison’s stomach. “I can get you some water.”

“I’m fine,” she says, and they share an amused look when the words register. “Like, actual fine, not Neil-fine. I’m probably just gonna head back to the dorm and sleep it off. You staying here?”

“Yes, if you’re sure you don’t need me.”

“I’ll be fine, _Mom_ ,” Allison says fondly, getting to her feet. “Take good care of the children.”

“Goodnight,” Renee calls after her.

Allison closes the door behind her before moving down the hall in case Renee is watching from the couch. She doesn’t stop when she reaches the suite she shares with Renee and Dan, heading for the end of the hall.

“Took you long enough,” Kevin says when he opens the door. 

“Shut up,” she says, and kisses him.

He yanks her into the suite, pressing her against the door the second she kicks it closed. His hands go to her jaw, forcing her head back as his mouth moves against hers. She wonders if he can taste the tequila on her lips and hopes he appreciates her generous show of restraint in not consuming enough alcohol to show up at his door wasted. 

He probably doesn’t.

“How long do we have?” she asks, pushing him back just enough for air to slip between them.

“Not long.”

“Better hurry up then,” Allison murmurs, sliding a hand down his chest. She grins when she makes it to his crotch, pressing down on the hardness she finds there. “Looks like that shouldn’t be too difficult.”

Kevin groans, almost inaudibly, and tugs her into the bedroom. 

“Take off your shirt,” she says, pulling her own over her head as Kevin locks the door behind them. They’re careful about that, never leaving a clothing trail in the living room for Neil or Andrew—or even Nicky, with his lack of boundaries—to find if they come back unexpectedly. 

“Impatient,” he says, but strips his t-shirt off without protest. Allison kisses him just to wipe the smirk off his face when he notices her eyes travelling over his torso. Kevin only tolerates it for a minute before turning her in his arms, pressing his chest to her back as he drags a hand down her chest and over her stomach. She gasps when he slides his fingers under the waistband of her yoga pants, nudging past her underwear. He unsnaps her bra with the other hand, then stumbles as she pulls his hand from between her legs and shoves him back.

“Bed,” Allison tells him, and delights in his easy obedience as he tugs his sweatpants off before sprawling on his back. She slides her pants off and clambers on top of him, pressing him down when he tries to sit up to meet her.

“I told you we don’t have a lot of time before they get back,” Kevin says when she doesn’t move immediately. “You planning to get on with it?”

“God, stop talking,” she says. “It’s turning me off.”

It’s a lie, mostly, but Kevin really is much more attractive when he’s not speaking. She leans down and presses her lips to his to stop the indignant protest she can see building, rocking her hips and catching his sharp breath.

“I can think of some much better uses for your mouth,” she mutters, and doesn’t stop him from rolling her under him. 

He nips at her neck, carefully not biting hard enough to bruise, and she shoves his head down. When he kisses over her stomach, Allison thinks that this must be why she puts up his awful attitude. When he makes it between her legs, she thinks that maybe, _maybe_ , his mouth is tolerable under certain circumstances. 

She presses her fist to her lips, tangling the fingers of her other hand in his hair, and gives up on thinking altogether.

When she’s getting dressed, after, she checks the clock. “Not too shabby, Day,” she says, a little impressed despite herself. Granted, she has no idea when Neil and Andrew are returning from wherever it is they fuck off to, but she thinks they’re getting pretty good at operating under a time limit. 

Kevin snorts from the bed. _Not too shabby_ doesn’t really cover the two unnervingly fantastic orgasms he’d wrung out of her in the last—hour? less than that?—and they both know it, but Allison glares at him anyway. She’s mature enough to admit that they’re both excellent in bed, but she’s also more than a little jealous that while she hunts for her bra, Kevin gets to lounge around in his underwear. He’d only bothered to pull on some boxers before flopping back into bed, and Allison had had to turn away from the picture he made, shirtless and sex-mussed.

She finds her bra strung over the headboard and leans closer to Kevin than is strictly necessary to retrieve it, taking vindictive pleasure in his startled inhale. She yanks her shirt over her head and runs her fingers through her hair, smoothing it as much as possible. 

“How do I look?” she asks, turning to face Kevin. 

He levels a flat stare at her. “Don’t fish.”

Allison sighs, propping a hand on her hip, and says, “Fine. On a scale of one to ten, how much does it look like I just fucked Kevin Day?”

His face flushes a satisfying shade of red. “Fuck if I know, four?”

“You,” Allison says, “are completely useless, you know that?”

She checks her appearance in the bathroom and reluctantly decides that “four” was a pretty accurate assessment. She’s sure Kevin pulled that number entirely out of his ass, though, so she doesn’t deign to let him in on that judgement.

“Make sure the coast is clear,” she orders.

Kevin rolls his eyes but complies, getting up and leaning out of the bedroom to survey the suite. “Still empty. Don’t get caught on your way back.”

“Fuck off,” she says cheerfully, waves over her shoulder, and walks away. 

——————————

The rules of their arrangement are simple.

Rule One: Don’t tell anyone. Allison would never live it down if the girls—or, god forbid, Matt—found out she was sleeping with Kevin, Kevin was adamant that their “extracurricular activities” would upset team dynamics, and they were equally horrified at the thought of Nicky’s inevitable gloating if he knew, what with the number of times he’d suggested they hook up.

_Extracurricular activities?_

_Fuck off, Allison._

Rule Two: No leaving marks where someone could see. The occasional hickey might escape scrutiny, but any consistent bruising would be a red flag to anyone perceptive enough to notice, and they have some _very_ nosy teammates.

 _At least_ you _can use makeup to cover it._

_So could you, if you weren’t such a wuss. And I am_ not _wasting my good concealer on your biting fetish, Day._

Rule Three: Don’t get attached. Allison had given in and broken her one-time-only rule after she and Kevin hooked up that first time only because she knew a repeat performance would be (a) very satisfying, if past precedent was anything to judge by, and (b) meaningless. She was single, Kevin was single, and neither of them were getting much action elsewhere, so why should they deny themselves the convenience of a consistent hook-up? Allison had warned him, as they lay naked and sweaty after that second time, that she wasn’t interested in anything more than sex, and Kevin had agreed so quickly she asked what he’d done with the real Kevin.

_You’d better not start obsessing over me now, Kevin._

_There is absolutely zero chance of that happening._

_Good. Your personality is repellant._

_Fuck you._

Rule Four: Don’t sleep around with anyone else. When Kevin suggested that one, she’d smacked him across the chest and was about to launch into a tirade about double standards until Kevin threw his hands up defensively and said it was only a health concern. She agreed only after he clarified that he meant it to apply to both of them, not just her, and that the exclusivity had nothing to do with possessiveness and thus was not in violation of Rule Three.

 _If you insist. Personally, I don’t think_ I _have anything to worry about; I’d be shocked if you could even convince someone else to sleep with you._

_You do realize that_ you _are sleeping with me._

_Yeah, well, lucky you._

The rules are subject to addendums if either of them thinks of something else, but for the most part, Allison thinks their arrangement is working out well for both of them. They’d agreed to call it off as soon as one or both of them became involved with someone else, but until that happens, she’s happy to have excellent, no-strings-attached sex whenever it suits her.

Allison had wondered, before they gave in and decided to repeat the mistake of their initial one-night-stand, if the only reason she’d been so impressed with Kevin’s performance that night was because it had been so long since she slept with anyone. He’d ended a months-long dry spell, so it was only to be expected, like giving up alcohol for long enough that your tolerance was obliterated and then waking up with a wicked hangover the next time you have a drink. After the second time, she’d been forced to admit that Kevin actually was that good a lay, and the fact that she was just as skillful meant that their sex was pretty much guaranteed to be fantastic.

What a bastard, honestly.

“Come on, Allison, we’re gonna be late!”

Allison glances up from her braid and levels Dan with an incredulous look in the mirror. “You’re literally the captain, we’re fine.”

“If you think that’ll stop Coach from giving us laps, I don’t know where you’ve been the past four years,” Dan says. “And if he doesn’t, Kevin will.”

She snorts. “He can try. I’m not afraid of his bitch-fits.”

After all, she has an arsenal of highly effective methods to punish him if he so much as hints that she should be forced into extra laps, not the least of which being a refusal to touch him until he repents. She’d like to see how superior he could act after a few days of the cold shoulder.

Dan laughs, but tugs Allison’s hands away from her hair. “Come on, it looks fine, let’s go.”

Allison lets herself be led from the room and out of the building. Matt’s idling in the parking lot, leaning against his truck and talking to Renee, who’s already situated in the tail bed. She smiles over Matt’s head when she notices them, and Matt turns to watch them approach.

“Finally!” he says, but his face is already softening into his patented Dan-hung-the-moon-and-the-stars smile. Allison might vomit if it wasn’t so precious. Besides, she’s had years to immunize herself against his lovesick stares. Dan’s, too.

Dan holds her hands up, laughing. “Wasn’t my fault.”

“Really? I’d never have guessed,” he says, and Allison flips him off before climbing into the bed of his truck across from Renee. 

“Your hair looks nice,” she says as the truck starts moving, nodding at the freshly dyed ends of Renee’s hair, purples and blues having replaced the pastel pink and green she’d been sporting.

Renee smiles. “Thank you. I considered changing it up and doing some sort of orange theme, but Andrew said he’d stop speaking to me if I did. Apparently Neil’s threatening to dye his hair orange for the spring season.”

“That’s just more reason to do it,” Allison says.

Renee doesn’t quite roll her eyes, but it’s close. “Allison.”

She laughs, stretching to nudge Renee’s foot with her own. “I hope Neil does it. I’d kill to see Andrew’s face.”

“He wouldn’t react,” Renee says, amused.

“No, but Neil would be in for a world of brooding. D’you think he’d get the couch treatment? Andrew’s petty enough to refuse sex until the dye comes out.”

“Maybe he’d like it,” Renee says, probably trying to defend Andrew, but Allison cackles. Renee blushes a little as her unintentional innuendo sinks in. 

“Oh my god,” Allison says, catching her breath. “I’m so gonna buy the brightest, tackiest orange dye I can find and make Neil use it.”

“Allison, don’t,” Renee says, a smile tugging at her lips. “Kevin will kill you if Andrew doesn’t get to you first. You know how he gets about appearances.”

She certainly did. One of her compact mirrors went missing after a hasty rendezvous in the girls’ suite two weeks ago, and she can’t prove Kevin took it, but she _knows_. 

Nicky waves at the four of them when they hop out of Matt’s truck. Andrew’s smoking against his car, but Neil, Kevin, and Aaron are nowhere in sight of the parking lot. 

“Alright, let’s go,” Dan says, leading the way to the court. Nicky falls in step with Renee as they walk, and Allison spares a glance over her shoulder to check if Andrew’s moved at all before she follows them. He hasn’t, but he’ll probably show up in the goal, fully outfitted, the second practice officially starts. Allison hasn’t figured out yet how he times it.

Predictably, Neil and Kevin are already running drills when they step inside, with a few of the freshmen milling around the sidelines. Neil stops to wave when he notices them, and Kevin swats at his arm to make him refocus. He gives them a brief once-over and points at the locker room without comment.

“Asshole,” Matt mutters, and Nicky dissolves in laughter. 

——————————

Kevin loses Neil as soon as Andrew steps onto the court. He rolls his eyes, but leaves them to each other’s company—he gave up that fight a long time ago, as Neil’s one-track mind invariably veers away from Exy when Andrew is involved. Kevin’s accepted this; he knows a losing game when he sees one. It never gets any less frustrating, though.

“Alright, assholes,” Wymack calls after a few minutes. “Over here.”

When they’ve all convened at half-court, Wymack turns the reins over to Dan, who launches into an explanation of the scrimmage they’re going to play. Kevin tunes it out once it becomes obvious what she’s building up to; it’s nothing he and the others haven’t practiced a hundred times over, but the freshmen—whom none of the Foxes can quite acknowledge as full members of the team—still need to improve significantly before they reach a mildly acceptable standard.

Allison tosses her braid over her shoulder in front of him, and he’s assailed with the smell of her shampoo. He’s reluctant to admit that he can differentiate between her hair products and perfume, but he supposes it was probably an inevitable consequence of spending so much time tangled up with her when they find the time. 

Kevin idly wonders if she could be convinced to skip her long post-practice primping routine in favor of coming back to his room, then bats the thought away as forcefully as possible. Their entire arrangement is based on the convenience of it, and there’s nothing convenient about rearranging their schedules to accommodate more frequent sex. He tries to imagine his own reaction if Allison asked him to abandon his nightly practices with Neil and Andrew to meet her more often and is disturbed at his lack of an immediate, violent rejection of the idea. He’d never forgo them completely, of course not, but he catches himself weighing the benefits of reducing the frequency to three nights a week instead of four.

It’s just exposure, Kevin decides. Prolonged exposure can affect the subconscious, but it shouldn't be a problem so long as he’s aware of it. 

And he’s very, very aware of Allison right now, shifting her weight to one side with a hand to her hip as Dan starts splitting them into teams. Her outfits have always been flashy and eye-catching, and her workout clothes are no exception, but Kevin finds it hard to believe that they were always quite so distracting. He tries to muster up a healthy disdain for her neon pink shorts and shimmery sports tank and fails.

He determinedly re-focuses on Dan in time to hear his name when she directs him to the far side of the court. Neil grins at him from his position on the opposite offense line, tapping his fingers to his temple in a salute Kevin’s sure he stole from Andrew, and Kevin feels a smirk tugging at his lips even as he shakes his head. Last year he rarely got the chance to test himself against Neil; the two of them were too focused on adapting to hold the line by themselves to waste time playing on opposite sides during practice, and their team scrimmages usually pitted them both against defense. Now they have enough spare players to separate into nearly fully operational teams. 

Dan meets Kevin at half-court for the coin-toss and calls, “On my mark!”

Neil makes him work for every possession, darting around the court too quickly to keep up with. Kevin was vaguely flattered when Andrew was assigned the opposite goal, recognizing it as an acknowledgement that Kevin was their strongest striker and thus had to be pitted against their strongest goalkeeper, but scoring on him is near-impossible even when he beats Neil to the ball. He almost— _almost_ —misses the days when Andrew stood motionless in goal without lifting a finger to stop Kevin from scoring. 

Jack curses when Neil makes it past Nicky, Aaron, and the new freshman backliner to score on Renee. 

“Problem?” Neil asks cheekily on his way back to his starting position, and Kevin gives him a stern look. Jack’s already spitting mad, and there’s no reason for Neil to antagonize him further. Neil grins unrepentantly and jogs backwards to clack sticks with Matt.

Renee serves straight to Kevin, and he’s moving before the ball is even in his net. He dodges Dan’s attempt to block him and passes to Jack when Matt bears down on him, then catches Jack’s rebound as soon as he’s open. Neil’s right on top of him, but Kevin still has the better part of a foot on him and doesn’t have much trouble knocking him aside. He has an open shot on goal, and even with Andrew actually making an effort today, it’s a good angle, he can even the score—

Kevin’s on his back almost before he recognizes the impact of a body under his raised racquet. Allison grins down at him as Neil takes off down the court with the ball, flipping her long braid behind her.

“Fuck you,” he says, to laughter from both Allison and Matt, and catches Andrew looking as close to amused as he ever does when he gets to his feet. He turns his back on the lot of them and tears after Neil. 

Wymack calls for a break after a few more goals are scored on both sides, subbing in more of the freshmen to take over from the more experienced Foxes. Dan instructs them to watch their replacements and make notes of areas they can improve in. Andrew disregards her orders immediately, taking a seat high in the bleachers instead of following Kevin, Matt, Allison, and Aaron to the bench, but Kevin thinks he’ll probably make enough observations to pass along to Renee later so she can relay them to the freshman goalie. It’s a needless safeguard against displaying any cracks in his apathy, but as long as he pays attention, Kevin doesn’t really care how the information gets transferred.

Matt strikes up a conversation with Aaron about a TV show they’ve been watching together as soon as they sit down, determinedly friendly despite Aaron’s short responses. He must recognize Aaron’s contributions to the conversation, brief as they are, as significant progress from the last two years. Kevin follows Jack’s movements on the court, wincing as Andrew rebounds one of his shots directly at his helmet. 

He feels Allison slide over to him, but keeps his eyes fixed on Jack. He’s yelling something incomprehensible at Neil, who snarls back at him before Dan moves to break it up. 

“Fifty bucks says they get into a fistfight by winter break,” Allison says. 

“I’m not betting on my strikers.”

“Yeah, ’cause you know you’ll lose.”

Kevin doesn’t want to admit she’s right, so he says, “You should be watching the game instead of messing around.”

He knows she’s going to huff in annoyance before the sound even reaches him. “I am watching, you buzzkill. Nothing interesting is happening on defense.”

Kevin refuses to dignify that with a response, and they both watch as Neil scores again and Nicky carefully steps in front of Jack to prevent him going after Neil. 

“Fifty bucks Jack throws the first punch,” Kevin says, resigned.

Allison’s head whips around so fast that Kevin pulls his eyes away from the scrimmage just to make sure her neck isn’t broken.

“Kevin Day,” she says, sounding delighted. “Was that an actual _joke_?”

“It wasn’t a joke,” he says, even though it was. “It was a prediction based on extensive observation of the subjects in question.”

Allison scoffs, but she’s still grinning. “Yeah, right.”

“Kevin? Joking? There’s no way,” Matt says, his attention drawn away from Aaron by Allison’s gloating. “You must be mistaken, Allison.”

Kevin wants to disagree on principle—he _is_ capable of making jokes, thank you very much—but that would require admitting that Allison was right, which is obviously not acceptable. That leaves him very little room to respond without incriminating himself in one way or another, so he just glares.

“Fuck you both,” he says, returning his focus to the game. On the court, Neil scores using some footwork Kevin recognizes as one of his own techniques.

Allison laughs, softer this time, and nudges his shoulder before turning to Matt. 

Kevin decides his pride over Neil’s tricky goal must be the cause of the warmth curling in his stomach.

——————————

_You’re so on for that bet btw_

_Be prepared to lose, then._

_I don’t need ur money Day. I’ll love taking it from u when I win though_

_Good luck with that._

_Don’t need luck. My bb Neil never lets me down_

_Break’s over, put your phone away and get back to work._

_F u_

——————————

Andrew comes down with the flu during finals week and doesn’t tell anybody until he collapses mid-practice. There’s a flurry of activity: Neil sprints to him and throws himself to the ground, hands hovering over Andrew without touching; the Foxes converge on the goal in varying states of panic and concern, forcing Abby to shove her way through the crowd; Andrew wakes up and snaps at all of them, _shut up, I’m fine, get away from me—yes, you idiot, help me up._

The end result of all this is that Wymack and Abby team up to force Andrew into bed rest, and Neil flits around the dorm constantly, worrying over him and trying to stop him from walking out.

So, naturally, Kevin’s suite becomes effectively off-limits for any sexual activity. 

“I feel like we’re bad people for thinking about that,” Allison had said when he gave her the news, then shrugged. “Whatever.”

Kevin agrees wholeheartedly with Wymack’s decision—they need Andrew to recover as quickly as possible, which won’t happen if he’s being stubborn and practicing with them every day—but it does make it much more difficult to facilitate meeting up with Allison. Not that it’s that devastating, but—well, Kevin had gotten used to having sex on a frequent and regular basis, that’s all.

Finals are a decent—albeit torturous—distraction. Kevin is fairly confident about all his subjects, but if he hears Nicky freak out over his marketing class one more time, he can’t promise that nobody will get stabbed.

“It’s just so much to memorize,” Nicky’s saying urgently to an uninterested Aaron. “Like, I’m _good_ at marketing, I do really well on all the projects and everything, but the exams are the worst. Do you think it’s too late to ask if I can do a practical exam instead?”

Kevin groans. “Can’t you ask someone for help?” he asks, then immediately regrets it when Nicky turns to him, wringing his hands.

“I only know, like, three people in that class, and I don't want to bother them when they’re all studying super hard too.”

“Ask Allison,” Kevin says without thinking. He’s heard this rant too many times to be bothered with discretion. “She’s a marketing major too.”

“Sure,” Aaron says, his lip curling. “Fashion marketing.”

“It might help,” Kevin defends. That, at least, isn’t out of character; everyone in the room is aware of Kevin’s stubborn streak. “She’s got a final project this semester where she has to pitch a line to some fake investors or something.”

They’re both staring at him oddly, so he adds, “She’s been complaining about it to Neil for weeks, it’s getting to be almost as irritating as your constant state of crisis.”

Nicky gasps in mock offense, but slings an arm around Kevin. “You do have your uses, Kevin Day,” he says, then takes off, presumably to go pester Allison. Kevin feels marginally guilty for inflicting a panicked Nicky on her without warning, but it’s nothing compared to his relief at the blessed silence that settles over the kitchen.

“Smart,” Aaron says. “Now he can bother someone else.”

“Exactly.”

He and Neil are watching one of the Trojans’ games from last season on his computer when his phone buzzes in his pocket. Andrew banished them from the bedroom when he realized what they were doing— _the sound of your obsession is physically driving me closer to my deathbed_ —and Kevin had forced Neil to sit on the couch like a civilized, spinal health-conscious human being for once. 

“Answer it,” Neil says, pausing the game. “I’m going to check on Andrew.”

Kevin wonders if he should be offended that Neil was evidently itching for an excuse to get up. Probably not. Exy runs hot and unrelenting in Neil’s blood like it does in Kevin’s, but when it comes to a choice between Exy and Andrew, Andrew wins out every time.

He glances at the bedroom door to make sure it’s closed behind Neil when he sees who texted him.

_D+M r going out tonight_

Kevin laughs, just a little. Allison never tells him to come over directly. She just drops casual notices that her dorm is empty, or her dinner plans got cancelled, and lets Kevin make the obvious connection on his own.

He’s tempted to ask what that piece of information has to do with him, but he knows Allison is far more likely to just say _nothing at all_ , deadly serious, and let the opportunity pass by than she is to issue an actual invitation. It’s an odd bit of pride to cling to, but it hardly matters when they both know what she means. Kevin’s not about to test her will.

He types, _And Renee?_

_Dinner w/ Stephanie before break_

Kevin had reluctantly agreed to let Allison and Neil spring for a ski trip for winter break, largely because he was afraid Wymack might feel obligated to attempt some sort of family Christmas. Thanksgiving had been awkward enough, even with Neil and the cousins as a buffer. Matt and Renee were the only Foxes with family they’d consider spending the holidays with, and as they’d both seen their mothers over Thanksgiving, they didn’t mind spending Christmas with the Foxes instead. 

Apparently Christmas was important to the Walkers, though, and Stephanie had flown to Columbia to visit Renee since her adoptive daughter would be high in the mountains on the actual date. He wonders when Allison told him that; he knows it wasn’t Renee who shared the information.

_I’ll come over after they leave._

She doesn’t respond, but Kevin knew she wouldn’t. He puts his phone away, and Neil returns from Andrew’s bedside, and they start the game back up.

Onscreen, the Trojans win 8-6, and Kevin abruptly remembers Allison mentioning that she’d been invited to spend the day with Renee and her mother. He knows she spent Thanksgiving with them, having no relationship with her own parents to speak of, and tries not to wonder why she turned down the invitation.

He can’t quite suppress a smile.

——————————

“Did you get Coach anything for Christmas?” Allison says later, when they’re lying in her bed catching their breath. “Please say yes.”

Kevin had discovered in the earliest days of their arrangement that it was frustratingly difficult to muster up a properly intimidating glare in the hazy aftermath of good sex, but it doesn’t stop him from trying. Allison looks unbothered.

“Sure. I got him a World’s Greatest Dad mug.”

Allison laughs, breathless and unrestrained, and Kevin refuses to feel satisfied.

“Shut up, you did not,” she says when she recovers.

His lips quirk against his will.

“Fine,” he says. “I bought him tickets to the Olympics next summer. And a new whistle.”

Discomfort settles over him suddenly. Kevin had thought the tickets were a good idea when he bought them last week, and Wymack really did need a new whistle—he’s had to use his so often that now it only makes a pathetic noise reminiscent of a tea kettle boiling over—but with the words hanging in the empty suite, he wonders if he’d completely missed the mark. He stares at the ceiling, unwilling to look at Allison and gauge her reaction.

He doesn’t know how to have a father. He doesn’t know how to be a son.

“That’s…way less lame than I expected,” Allison says. “I totally thought you’d freak out and get, like, a tie or something. What a letdown.”

Kevin glances at her, dumbfounded. She’s pouting in exaggerated disappointment, but she breaks and smiles at whatever doubtlessly amusing expression he’s wearing. Kevin’s relief is so thick he can practically taste it. 

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” he asks.

Allison shudders. “Don’t even go there. Of course not.”

She’s lying, and Kevin knows it, and she knows he does.

“Of course,” he echoes, and there’s a long moment where they just stare at each other, and then Allison breaks out of her reverie and sits up, letting the sheets fall around her hips. Kevin tries not to stare. He’s not entirely successful, judging by the smirk on Allison’s lips, but she doesn’t comment.

“The others won’t be back for a while,” she says, sliding out of bed. “I’m gonna shower.”

She doesn’t bother to cover up as she makes her way to the bathroom, and Kevin stares after her and wonders if the sway of her hips is intentional.

He listens for the sound of the bathroom door closing. It doesn’t come. Kevin waits sixty seconds before he follows Allison, who doesn’t even try to pretend she wasn’t waiting for him to join her.

“Finally,” she says when he backs her under the spray of water. “Thought you weren’t coming.”

Kevin plants one hand on the tile over her shoulder, kindly decides not to make any of the suggestive comments she’s just opened the door to, and kisses her instead of responding.

They’re at their best when they’re not talking anyway, he thinks as he mouths down her body, and tries not to remember the way Allison always laughs like he’s startled her into it. He finds that the intrusive thoughts are easy to block out with Allison’s leg tossed over his shoulder and her gasps filtering through the sound of the shower.

Allison’s legs are shaking visibly when he stands again, but she wastes no time shoving him back against the wall and pressing her mouth to his. One hand yanks at his hair to tug him down, and Kevin thinks maybe she hasn’t released her grip on it since he went to his knees. The other slides down his chest and between his legs, and Kevin smacks a hand against the wall for balance, and Allison laughs into his mouth.

They stand under the spray for a while, after. There’s really no excuse for it this time, but the air is cold and the water is hot and Allison isn’t making any move to pull away from him, so Kevin doesn’t either.

Eventually, Allison tilts her head and says, “You want to wash my back for me?”

There’s a wicked grin on her face, but it melts into something more genuine when Kevin just rolls his eyes and grabs a bottle of body wash off the shelf at random. 

_Stop smiling at me_ , Kevin thinks, vaguely horrified at the jolt of warmth in his chest, and wonders if he should add that to their list of rules.

There’s no way he could explain that addition to Allison, though, so he shuts the thought down and washes her back.

“Renee just texted,” Allison says when they’ve both towelled off. Neither of them have bothered to get fully dressed—Kevin’s lounging on her bed in his boxers and Allison only troubled herself to throw on a fluffy white bathrobe. “She’s staying with Stephanie at her hotel.”

“Okay?”

Allison shoots him a glare over her shoulder from her vanity, where she’s sitting and plaiting her wet hair. “And Dan is going back to Matt’s room. You may as well stay here.”

She sounds casual, but Kevin can see her knee bouncing. They’re both aware that they haven’t actually spent the night together since that first time on Halloween. 

“Yeah,” Kevin says. It’s only logical. He won’t have to make excuses for his prolonged disappearance or wet hair. He ignores the part of himself pointing out that it’s never been all that hard to come up with perfectly innocuous explanations and says, “Okay.”

“Okay,” Allison says.

——————————

The day of the winter banquet, Wymack orders no fewer than five Foxes to keep Neil out of trouble. 

“I’m not prepared for that kind of responsibility, Coach,” Matt says. Allison, who was roped into being Neil’s date for the night—Kevin, trying to convince her, had launched into a lecture about the importance of appearances, especially now that they were champions; Allison, well versed in the intricacies of publicity, was unable to refute his points and kissed him to shut him up—nods emphatic agreement.

Wymack sighs. “Just don’t let him out of your sight.”

Privately, Allison thinks that won’t be an issue, since Andrew is either feeling well enough to attend or doing a good job faking it, but she’s rather attached to all her vital organs, so she doesn’t comment.

To his credit, Neil refrains from picking a fight with any of the other teams when they arrive, though that small blessing is likely due to the organizers not having been stupid enough to seat the Foxes with the Ravens this year. He even makes what Allison thinks is his best attempt at socializing, which is probably only successful because he can ramble about Exy in the place of actual small talk. Still, progress is progress.

Neil ditches her after a few hours, and Allison can’t be bothered to muster up any outrage. Across the hall, she can see Renee talking to Matt and Dan and missing her own date, so she has a pretty good idea where—or, more accurately, who—Neil snuck off to. 

She spies Kevin having what looks to be a very uncomfortable conversation with Jean Moreau and Jeremy Knox, though Knox seems to be trying his hardest to lighten the mood, and sets her drink down. 

Kevin notices her approach before the other two, and if he wasn’t so meticulous about guarding his expression, Allison thinks he would look relieved. 

“Hey,” she says when she reaches their awkward little circle. Moreau startles, and Allison doesn’t miss the way he leans closer to Knox. _So it’s like that, then_ , she thinks, watching Knox angle himself toward Moreau like it’s instinct. She flashes Knox a winning smile and extends a freshly manicured hand. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Allison.”

“Yeah, I think I was too busy dying after that game,” he says, laughing as he shakes her hand.

“No worries. We were busy kicking your asses anyway.”

Kevin makes a choking noise. Allison ignores him, letting her smile loosen into a more natural grin when Knox laughs even harder. 

“Definitely,” he says, still grinning. Kevin relaxes a little, and she takes that as her cue. 

“My date ditched me,” she tells Kevin. “So you’re dancing with me.” 

Kevin looks startled. “Me?” 

“It’s your fault I had to take Neil to this thing, so yeah, you,” she says. To Knox, she adds, “It was great meeting you for real.”

She nods at Moreau. “And seeing you again.”

Knox waves cheerfully as Allison drags Kevin onto the dance floor. 

“Allison,” he hisses when she stops moving. “What are you doing?”

“That was painful to watch,” she informs him, slinging her arms around his neck. “And we’re dancing, unless you want to hunt down Neil and Andrew and get yourself murdered trying to get them back out here.”

Kevin—rather wisely, in Allison’s opinion—places his hands on her waist.

——————————

Kevin really should have anticipated someone spiking the punch.

It’s not strong, but a few cups loosen him up enough that he actually tells Allison that she looks nice. It’s an understatement and she seems to know it, smirking at him over another cup of punch.

“Was that a compliment?”

“Of course not,” he says. “Don’t even go there.”

Her face lights with recognition and she barks out a laugh.

Warmth curls through his stomach. The punch must have been stronger than he realized, Kevin thinks.

——————————

Allison knows better than to break out her flask, but this banquet is a celebration, right? She’s not sure exactly what it’s a celebration _of_ , but that’s a secondary concern.

Kevin steals the flask, and she protests. 

“I’ve only had some punch,” he says crossly. “I can handle a little tequila.”

And, well, it’s not her responsibility to keep him sober, is it? That’s not one of their rules. She bludgeons the thread of concern and watches him swallow, head tilted back and lips gleaming with alcohol.

Later, when they collapse, tipsy and giggling, against the wall of a darkened hallway, she kisses the tequila off his lips and forgets why she’d thought stopping him was a good idea.

She’s still careful not to get lipstick on his collar, though, because that is one of the rules.

——————————

“Kevin!” Nicky exclaims, wrapping an arm around him. Kevin staggers under his sudden weight. Nicky has definitely been hitting the punch pretty hard, because he’s slurring when he says, “Where were you? I missed my eye-candy.”

Kevin watches Allison get dragged into a messy embrace with Dan and Renee and doesn’t respond, because that’s one of the rules.

——————————

_I’m never letting u pick my date to one of those things again_

_It wasn’t that bad._

_No it wasn't_

——————————

They both know their arrangement is going to be put on pause for the duration of the ski trip; it would be far too risky to sneak around with all the Foxes in such close quarters for the next two weeks. Allison tries not to feel disappointed.

She doesn’t tell the Foxes that she’d paid for first-class seats until she’s distributing tickets at the airport.

“Oh my god, Allison,” Dan says, sounding torn between amazement and reluctance. “You’re already paying for the resort, you can’t—”

She gestures wildly, apparently lost for words.

“No, no, don’t question it,” Nicky says hastily. “I, for one, am totally cool with it, Allison.”

“Of course you are,” Kevin says.

“Anyway, Neil split the cost of the lodge with me,” Allison says, shooting Neil a smile he returns hesitantly. “So I had some spare change.”

Dan sputters. “ _Spare change?_ Allison—”

“Don’t question it, babe,” Matt says, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Thanks, Allison.”

She waves it off and says, “I’m bored now. Let’s go stuff our faces with Cinnabon, our flight doesn’t leave for an hour.”

She walks away without checking to see if anyone follows; Andrew, at least, will put aside his distaste for obeying others’ demands in the name of junk food, and Neil will undoubtedly join him. 

Dan falls in step with her when she reaches the food court and says, “I’m buying,” in a tone that brooks no argument.

——————————

“Happy yet?” Allison asks when they’re finally airborne.

Dan glares at her, but she looks too relaxed for it to be effective. The seats are large enough that she’s abandoned her own in favor of cozying up to Matt, and Allison had gladly claimed Dan’s vacated seat to hold her extraneous bags.

“I certainly am,” Nicky says, reclining his seat until he can stare at them upside-down.

Neil and Renee are the only ones who don’t order anything alcoholic when the stewardess makes her rounds. Not that Neil could, technically, but he refuses Matt’s offer to order him something anyway. Allison blinks in surprise when Andrew knocks back two whiskeys in quick succession; he usually paces himself more, but maybe he hates being surrounded by all the Foxes with no real escape routes. 

“Skiing is, like, so weird,” Nicky says, bordering on tipsy. “Like, who decided to just strap some sticks to their feet and launch themself off a mountain?”

“It’s not that bad, man,” Matt says. “I can show you how.”

“You’ve been skiing—what, once?” Dan asks wryly. “I’m not sure you can teach us all, babe.”

“They have classes at the lodge,” Kevin says without looking up from his computer. “I checked.”

Allison wonders suddenly if Kevin is nervous. He’d told the entire world that he’d never been skiing, but after insisting for so long that his hand was shattered in a skiing accident, he must know better than any of them how much damage a mistake on the slopes can do. 

She forces down the unwelcome bolt of concern and says, “God, I’m so glad we banned the freshmen.”

Neil nods emphatically from his seat next to Andrew. Matt laughs and says, “You can say that again,” and Nicky raises his glass in commiseration. 

Kevin glances up long enough to roll his eyes at her, and she grins as he turns back to his computer.

——————————

_Pls tell me ur not watching exy over there_

_Better Exy than tabloid nonsense._

_Gotta keep up w the gossip somehow_

_Hey this article’s abt u_

_[photo.jpg]_

_How does it feel to put the “exy in sexy” mr. NCAA heartthrob???_

_Never repeat that ever again._

——————————

Kevin makes a beeline for the single room while Allison and Neil check in at the front desk. It’s smaller than the doubles, but that’s a small price to pay to avoid sharing with Nicky.

Aaron curses at him when Kevin beats him there, and Kevin allows himself to feel smug as he drops his duffel at the foot of the bed.

Dan had released everyone to get settled in with strict orders to reconvene in two hours in the resort’s common room. She and Matt were sharing a room, as were Andrew and Neil. Allison had sprung for separate rooms for herself and Renee, claiming that she’d shared a room with two other people for nearly five years and had no intention of doing so on her vacation, too.

Kevin doesn’t realize he’s dozed off until Nicky bangs on his door, rousing him. 

“Fuck off,” he calls, but rolls off the bed. Nicky is waiting for him with an obnoxious grin when he opens the door, and Kevin shoulders past him, ignoring Nicky’s laughter at his rumpled appearance.

The rest of the team is already gathered in front of the fireplace when Kevin and Nicky arrive. Nicky immediately throws himself into an armchair. Matt takes one look at Kevin and sighs, digging a crumpled bill out of his pocket. Allison takes it with airy grace.

“Told you,” she says.

“Fuck all of you,” Kevin says evenly, and sits next to Neil on the couch. Neil shifts closer to Andrew to accommodate him.

His phone buzzes in the pocket of his jeans, and he keeps it angled away from Neil when he pulls it out.

_Rise and shine, sleeping beauty_

He knows Allison is smirking, but he refuses to look over at her.

Dan claps. “Alright, debriefing time. We’re signed up for skiing lessons tomorrow—thank you Allison—so don’t stay up too late and don’t get wasted. That means you,” she adds, sweeping a stern gaze from Kevin to Nicky and Aaron. “Do whatever you want in the meantime.”

“Yes, Captain,” Allison drawls. Kevin fights down a smirk.

“I thought you said _don’t_ get wasted,” Nicky complains. “You’re sending mixed messages here, Dan.”

Dan rolls her eyes, but amends, “Do whatever you want that won’t result in you tumbling down the slopes tomorrow because you’re too hungover to keep your balance.”

Nicky gives her a thumbs-up. Andrew and Aaron both look uninterested, and Kevin wonders if either of them are paying any attention whatsoever. 

“Capiche?” Dan asks, glancing around the room like she’s daring them to disagree. “Great. I’m going to bed.”

She stands, tugging Matt with her. They both glance at Allison expectantly, but it takes her a moment to look up from her nails.

“What?”

“What, no ‘no fucking where I can hear it’?” Matt asks. 

“Yeah,” Dan says. “What happened to the ‘it’s unfair to the single people’ crap?”

“Did you _want_ me to lecture you?” Allison asks, sounding bemused.

“No,” Dan says slowly, and Nicky gasps.

“You’re sleeping with someone!” he exclaims delightedly. Kevin’s eyes snap to Allison against his will, heart tripping in his chest. He feels Neil’s eyes on him and affects a bored expression with the ease born of years of experience with the press.

“What the fuck?” Allison says. Kevin’s relieved by the genuine shock in her voice and hopes the rest of the Foxes interpret it as proof that Nicky’s claim is far-fetched, rather than surprise at being caught.

“It has been a while since you complained about not getting laid,” Matt says, realization dawning in his tone. 

“So,” Dan says. “Who is it?”

“No one,” Allison snaps. She’s flushing, almost imperceptibly, and Kevin wonders if anyone else notices. “I was trying to be nice since it’s Christmas and all that shit, but you know what? I’m banning sex for this whole trip. Don’t think I won’t separate you two,” she adds, pointing between Dan and Matt. “I _will_ cozy up to either one of you if it means not having to hear you fucking through the walls. That goes for you guys, too.”

Andrew stares blankly back at her when she fixes her gaze on him and Neil. Neil says, “Allison, I paid for our room.”

He sounds amused, and she rolls her eyes. “Fine, you two get a pass. I really don’t want to die snuggling with Andrew, anyway.”

“Smart choice,” Andrew says, sounding bored by the prospect.

Allison stands up, ignoring the jeers, and heads for her bedroom without a word.

“So…” Nicky says once she’s out of earshot. “She’s totally hooking up with someone, right?”

“I hate to agree with Nicky, I really do,” Dan says. “But yeah, I think so.”

Nicky points at her victoriously. Aaron says, “Who cares?” 

Nicky ignores him and looks around the room expectantly. “So, bets on who it is?”

Andrew pulls Neil off the couch and leads him away as the others start placing bets. Renee sits back from the action, but there’s a considering look on her face that makes Kevin nervous.

“I’m going to sleep,” Kevin says, standing. Matt and Dan have abandoned their own getaway in favor of debating with Nicky over Allison’s sex life, and they both nod at him in acknowledgement.

“Goodnight,” Renee says, offering him a smile.

He waves back at her and escapes to his room. He flops backwards on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and thinks, _Fuck._

——————————

_Very subtle._

_Oh fuck off, u looked like a deer in headlights_

_They didn’t believe you, you know. They’re betting on you._

_Why am i not surprised_

——————————

Allison decides very quickly that she’s not a fan of skiing. She doesn’t like how out of control she feels hurtling down the mountain at top speed, doesn’t like snow whipping into her face, and doesn’t like the creases lining her face when she pulls her goggles off.

“Looking good, Allison,” Matt says, smirking. “We should take some pictures to commemorate the occasion. Maybe the yearbook’ll be interested.”

“I will eviscerate you,” she says, “and drop your body off the side of this fucking mountain.”

Matt snorts.

——————————

_This resort is so lame i swear to god_

_Like have u seen the size of the bathtubs?? offensive_

_You picked this resort._

_Technically Sarah did and clearly i was wrong to trust her_

_Maybe if you actually came out to the slopes, you wouldn’t be so bored._

_Ur one to talk don’t think i didn’t see andrew shove you out of the lift bc u took so long_

_Andrew did not have to shove me out of the lift._

——————————

Andrew shoves him out of the lift.

He pushes Neil, too, which is little consolation when Kevin is desperately trying not to trip over his skis and plummet his way to a career-ending injury. 

He makes it to the bottom of the slope safely, and Neil skids to a stop a few yards away. They exchange a terror-filled look before Andrew makes it to them.

Neil is the only sane member of this team, Kevin decides. Then he thinks about the eighteen months of evidence to the contrary and is forced to dismiss that assessment. Still, they should all know better than to risk their health and safety pitching themselves down the side of a mountain. 

“Never again,” Neil says darkly, and Kevin can only nod.

——————————

_Nicky’s ordering cocktails in the hot tub if you’re done hiding in your room._

_Well if u insist_

_U know if u wanted to see me in a bikini u could’ve just asked, i don’t judge_

——————————

Wymack calls on Christmas, and Dan puts him on speakerphone.

“Say hi, Coach,” she sing-songs. 

“Hey, you assholes. Everyone still alive?”

“He means you, Neil,” Allison says. Neil rolls his eyes at her.

“We’re fine, Coach.”

“Goddamnit, Josten,” Wymack sighs, just as Matt says, “You know, saying ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ really isn’t an improvement.”

“But we are fine,” Neil protests.

Allison watches as Nicky and Aaron, both of whom crossed the border from “tipsy” into “wasted” several drinks ago, tussle over the TV remote and trip over the back of the couch. They knock into Kevin, who lets out an indignant “Hey!” as they start shouting at each other in slurred German.

“So I hear,” Wymack says.

Dan, who’s had her fair share of drinks as well, sways against Matt as she says, “Merry Christmas, Coach.”

“Merry Christmas, shitheads.”

——————————

There’s a wrapped package on Kevin’s bed when Neil and Andrew help him to his room that night. He hopes it isn’t a bomb.

“What is that?” Neil asks, instantly on edge. 

“It’s a box,” Andrew says.

Kevin stumbles over to sit on the edge of the bed and tears the paper off. It’s Christmas-themed wrapping paper, which he can’t help but think is probably a good sign regarding the possible malicious nature of the package.

His laugh when he gets the box open is enough to startle Neil and make Andrew regard him with more curiosity than apathy.

“Is that a mug?” Neil asks.

“Stunning observation.”

“Yeah,” Kevin says. “It is.”

He keeps it angled toward himself so they can’t make out the dramatic black **HISTORY BUFF** covering the front of the mug or the neat line beneath it that reads, _I’d find you more interesting if you were dead._

He’s especially careful to hide the note he finds inside it, taped to the bottom of the mug. 

_Merry Christmas, you huge fucking nerd._

“Oh my god,” Neil says. “Are you— _smiling_?”

——————————

_Merry Christmas to you, too._

——————————

They ring in the New Year in typical Fox fashion: chaotically, with plenty of alcohol.

Aaron’s on the phone with Katelyn in the corner, drunk but surprisingly earnest as he professes his undying love. Dan and Matt are tangled up together in an armchair and seem to have given up on waiting until midnight to kiss. A forlorn Nicky is rambling about how he misses Erik, and Renee is holding his hand and patting his shoulder in sympathy. Neil and Andrew are talking quietly in the corner of the room, not touching, but angled toward each other in a way that makes Allison doubt whether they’re even aware of the rest of the people in the room.

Kevin’s given up on sobriety tonight, and Allison can’t blame him. He’s almost smiling for once, sprawled loosely on the couch and gazing around the room at the rest of the team. His eyes fix on Allison, and his almost-smile turns into a real one, and that—that’s a problem, Allison thinks dimly.

She smiles back, because she’s had too many shots to stop herself.

“Countdown!” Nicky yells, all sadness forgotten. On the TV, the ball descends.

“Five!”

Allison glances around, at Dan and Matt who have separated long enough to watch the clock strike midnight, at Aaron grinning into his phone.

“Four!”

Renee sits next to her, smiling, and taps her soda against Allison’s vodka.

“Three!”

Neil drags Andrew out of the room, and Allison decides not to cash in the bets that she could win by pointing it out.

“Two!”

Kevin looks at her, and she looks back, and neither of them say anything.

“One!”

Dan and Matt are kissing before the countdown reaches zero. 

“Happy New Year!” Nicky cries.

Allison tilts her glass toward Kevin. He raises his own in her direction, just a fraction, and they both knock their drinks back. Allison sets her glass down heavily, savagely angry for reasons she doesn’t want to think about.

Renee pulls her into a hug, and Allison clings to her as the Foxes celebrate around them.

 _Happy fucking New Year_ , she thinks.

——————————

Kevin startles when his bedroom door opens without warning. He hurriedly places the **HISTORY BUFF** mug on his nightstand.

Allison slowly closes the door behind her, quietly enough that Kevin can barely hear it. He sits up, squinting at her.

“Allison?” he asks as she pads across the floor. “What are you doing?”

“How drunk are you?” she asks in lieu of an answer.

“Not very,” Kevin says. Allison considers this for a moment.

“Good,” she says, and kisses him.

He tugs her forward without hesitation, and they both go sprawling across the bed. Allison lands on top of him, and she straddles his hips for balance.

She tucks her hair behind her ear, a shockingly self-conscious gesture, and says, “This is a bad idea.”

Kevin doesn’t point out that she was the one who sought him out, because he knows what she means, and she isn’t referring to the sex.

“Probably,” he agrees, and drags her down for another kiss.

——————————

Allison has to go back to her own room before the others wake up, they both know it, but Kevin doesn’t protest when she curls up and says, “I’m too tired to do the walk of shame right now. Wake me in an hour. Or two.”

He sets the alarm on his phone to go off in two hours and lets the weight of Allison’s arm across his chest drag him into slumber.

——————————

_I think I broke a r—_

_[message deleted]_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will feature: internal conflict! secrets exposed! lots of feels! Who do y’all think will figure them out first??
> 
> Also, I realized Thea hasn’t come up at all in this fic?? I meant to have a scene where Kevin explains that they parted amicably after the whole Jean debacle, but it just...never really fit anywhere, so do with that what you will.
> 
> Thank you for reading, you're all amazing for making it through 10k of my nonsense! Come yell at me on tumblr at allisonjamaica if you feel like it :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, here's the second half of this behemoth! Enjoy, guys, and thank you to everyone who's been leaving such lovely comments! You're all amazing and I hope you know how much I appreciate you :)
> 
> (content warnings: there’s one instance of attempted non-consensual drug usage, but nothing major. feel free to comment or message me on tumblr if you have any concerns!)

They’re really rather obvious, Neil thinks.

He watches Kevin nod in approval as Allison demonstrates a play for their freshman dealer. She looks his way briefly, just a flicker of satisfaction crossing her face, before turning her attention back to the freshman. 

“I’m going to miss the girls next year,” Neil says, just to see what reaction he gets out of Kevin. 

Kevin glances at him. “You should be more concerned with how you’re going to captain the team,” he says. Neil has to give him credit—he sounds remarkably cool, but for nine years, Neil’s survival depended on his ability to read people, and Kevin’s not nearly as unbothered as he’s trying to appear.

Neil sighs. “It’s just going to be so different without them.”

A muscle in Kevin’s jaw twitches, but he gives no other indication that he’s even heard Neil. Neil is almost impressed.

“Stop wasting time,” Kevin says. “Go run the drill with Jack again.”

“You know, technically I outrank you,” Neil says, but he jogs toward Jack anyway, because he figures he’s pushed Kevin enough. For now.

——————————

Neil expects Allison to crack more easily, but he realizes quickly that he shouldn’t have. Allison grew up in the spotlight just like Kevin did, and she’s an expert at masking her feelings; he really needs to stop underestimating her. He pokes at the subject as casually as he knows how, but Allison never gives so much as a hint that she’s affected.

“You know, the others are betting on who you’re sleeping with,” he tries when she’s trimming his hair in the girls’ bathroom. She scoffs, brushing a stray hair from the nape of his neck.

“They’ll all lose,” she says dismissively. “I’m not sleeping with anyone, unfortunately.”

“Really?” Neil feigns disappointment. “I was hoping you’d give me insider information so I could win.”

Allison grins at him in the mirror. “That’s the spirit! We’ll make a pro gambler out of you yet, Neil Josten. God, I feel like a proud mother.”

She mimes wiping away a tear, and Neil can’t help but smile as he relaxes under her hands. He wasn’t lying when he told Kevin he would miss the girls next year; he can’t imagine tackling a new captaincy without Dan’s fierce support and Renee’s quiet kindness and Allison’s blazing, unhesitating friendship.

He listens to the quiet snip of the scissors and decides, for once, not to ruin the moment by opening his mouth.

——————————

When Kevin calls an end to night practice forty-five minutes early, Neil wants to scream. 

He watches Kevin jog to the men’s locker room, debating whether it would be worth the inevitable lecture if he launched a ball his way to trip him up. He knows Dan and Matt claimed the suite Matt shares with Aaron and Nicky—Nicky, crashing on their couch, had complained loudly and at length about being “sexiled,” and Neil presumes Aaron is staying with Katelyn. He’s not sure where Renee is, but he’s guessing she’s otherwise occupied if Kevin is in such a hurry to get back to the dorms. 

“Disgusting, isn’t it?” Andrew says, coming up beside him. Neil glances at him curiously, and Andrew nods to the locker room doors.

“Oh,” Neil says. “That he thinks he’s being subtle or the reason he wants to leave early?”

He doesn’t know if Andrew has clocked in to the specifics of Kevin’s recent good mood, and he doesn’t want to expose Allison if Andrew hasn’t realized who, exactly, Kevin is sleeping with.

Andrew gives him an unimpressed look, clearly seeing through his attempt at subterfuge. “I couldn’t give less of a fuck about him and Reynolds,” he says. “Kevin is not as clever as he thinks he is.”

Neil almost sags in relief. “Oh thank god, you see it too. They’re so obvious it’s painful to watch.”

Andrew hums. “He’ll be irritated if we don’t hurry.”

He sounds completely bored by the prospect. Neil grins. “Well, we can’t have that.”

One corner of Andrew’s mouth twitches, just a little.

They don’t make Kevin wait too long, but he still snaps at both of them when they emerge from the showers. Neil is very, very tempted to turn right back around and let him stew in outrage, but Andrew leads the way to the Maserati without a word.

Andrew doesn’t speak until they leave Kevin at the dorms.

“Have fun with your girlfriend,” he says, blank-faced, then turns and heads for the stairwell that leads to the roof.

Neil grins at Kevin as he sputters, shock and embarrassment warring over his face. He follows Andrew before Kevin can find the words to deny Andrew’s accusation, but he can’t resist firing a parting shot.

“Tell Allison I said hi,” Neil calls over his shoulder, and laughs as he hears Kevin choke on air.

——————————

Allison would have preferred to have this conversation fully clothed, but she supposes it’s her own fault that she stripped to her underwear before Kevin even arrived from his nightly practice with Neil and Andrew. 

Of course, she wasn’t expecting Kevin to burst into her bedroom, flushed and wild-eyed and generally looking about two steps from a full-blown panic attack.

“They know,” he hisses, and Allison gets to her feet, abruptly aware of her own exposed skin. Kevin seems to notice at the same moment, and he swallows as she meets his eyes.

“Kevin,” she says slowly, and relishes in his wince. “What did you just say?”

He sighs. “Neil and Andrew know, about—”

He waves between them awkwardly. “This. Or they suspect, at least. Though they were definitely acting like they knew.”

Allison stares at him until he fidgets. “It’s not like I told them,” he says defensively.

“Shit,” Allison says, and grabs her bathrobe from the back of the bathroom door and wraps it tightly around herself. Kevin joins her when she sits on the edge of her bed, but she doesn’t look at him, fixing her eyes on her toenails instead.

“So,” she says. She really needs to get a pedicure, she thinks. The blue polish is starting to chip. She focuses on the sliver of exposed nail and asks, “What do you want to do about it?”

Kevin is silent for a long moment. “No one was supposed to know,” he says, so quiet Allison almost mistakes his tone for sadness. “That was one of the rules.”

“Right,” Allison says.

Neither of them moves.

“They probably won’t say anything,” Kevin says eventually. “They don't care enough to.”

Allison nods absently. “I’ll talk to Neil. I’m not going near Andrew with a ten foot pole, though.”

Kevin snorts. Allison fumbles for something to say that might prolong the inevitable ending they’re hurtling toward.

“We still have the room to ourselves,” she says. “We might as well take advantage.”

Kevin looks at her, surprised. She stares back evenly and tamps down an unwelcome surge of wistfulness.

“Might as well,” he echoes, and Allison isn’t certain who moves first, but then Kevin’s mouth is on hers and she’s straddling his lap and he’s scooting backward to make more room. He lets himself fall back, and Allison gives herself three seconds to memorize the way he looks against her pillow before she leans forward. She kisses him ruthlessly, and it’s almost brutal enough to banish the savage, unexpected grief twisting in her chest, almost fierce enough to forget.

She lets him press her into the mattress and drags his head back to her throat when he starts to move down her body. “I don’t care anymore,” she says, and thinks, _Liar_. “We already broke one rule, right?”

 _More than one_ , she doesn’t add.

Kevin bites down hard in answer, and she knows the bruise will be impossible to hide, and she tries not to feel too victorious.

They don’t say this is the last time. They don’t have to.

——————————

Kevin doesn’t look at Allison while he’s getting dressed. He made the mistake of glancing over at her, just once, as he got up, and her face was drawn in something like pain as she stared at the ceiling. He’d had to avert his eyes, his stomach twisting uncomfortably.

“I should go,” he says, dimly aware that neither one of them has ever said anything of the sort in the past few months. They leave each other as casually as they find each other. _I should go_ invites the possibility of a counter-offer, _stay_ , and they always knew that was never an option.

Allison doesn’t respond, just slides out of bed and retrieves her bathrobe. She walks him out of the bedroom—another first—and Kevin hesitates by the front door.

“Well,” she says, and extends a hand. “It was a pleasure doing business with you, Day.”

Kevin chokes on something that might have been a laugh before it got tangled up in his lungs. He takes her hand, feels the firmness of her grip; he wishes he didn’t have to let go. “The pleasure was all mine.”

It would be easier if they were making innuendos, Kevin thinks. Less painful.

Allison searches his face, and Kevin wonders what she’s looking for. He wonders if he wants her to find it. She nods once and drops his hand.

When he leaves, he doesn’t look back.

——————————

Allison plans extensively to make sure she can corner Neil on his own. The last thing she wants is an audience for this conversation. 

First, she neglects to set her alarm, and by the time Dan realizes that Allison is still asleep, she can’t wait for her without making Matt and Renee late for practice, too. Allison generously waves them off and takes her Porsche to practice instead, managing to arrive halfway through warm-ups.

Wymack chews her out, but she doesn’t care; her plan is already in motion. She offers to make it up to him by making the lunch run, and Wymack agrees easily enough, probably guessing that she’ll spring for something more expensive than their usual sandwiches and takeout.

When they wrap up practice, she catches Neil on his way out of the locker room before Andrew can intercept him and begs him—loudly enough to be overheard by a few of the Foxes, for plausible deniability—to accompany her while she picks up lunch. Neil agrees, giving her a shrewd look that makes Allison think he knows exactly what she wants with him.

Allison doesn’t speak until they’ve pulled out of the parking lot. 

“So,” she says. “You found out?”

“Found out what?”

Allison glares at him. “Don’t be a shit. You _know_ and I want to know how.”

“You guys aren’t very subtle,” Neil says, shrugging. “It wasn’t hard to put together.”

“Enlighten me.”

“Kevin looked freaked when the others asked you if you were sleeping with someone, at the resort,” he says. “And he’s been in a weirdly good mood lately. You’ve been acting cagey when anyone asks about your love life. He disappears for hours at a time, you turn down invitations to go out with the others. Like I said, it wasn’t hard to figure out.”

Allison shakes her head, amused in spite of herself. “Okay, Sherlock, did anyone else think it was that easy to put together?”

“Just Andrew, as far as I know.”

“Of course,” Allison says. She’d expected as much. 

She can’t help but feel a little relieved that it was Neil who caught on instead of any of the others. Dan, Matt, and Nicky would never let her hear the end of it, but Neil probably doesn’t care enough to mock her. Renee wouldn’t tease or judge, but she’d give her those concerned looks that invariably make Allison feel like a guilty child. Neil is also highly unlikely to gossip, as is Andrew, who’s pretty much apathetic about everything concerning the Foxes—Neil excluded, of course—so she’s not overly concerned that either of them are going to spread their knowledge around.

Still, she has to be sure.

“Neil,” she says. “I don’t need to tell you not to tell anyone else, right?”

Neil huffs a laugh. “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.”

“Right, and we all know how great you are at keeping secrets,” she says, smirking at him. “And Andrew?”

“He doesn’t care at all. I don’t know what he’d say if someone asked him, but he’s not going to go around spreading the news, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Good,” Allison says, letting out a breath. “That’s good.”

They drive in comfortable silence for a few miles, and then Neil shoots a sly look at her and says, “Kevin, huh?”

“Do _not_ ,” she says, and Neil laughs at her. “Besides, it’s over now.”

“Oh,” Neil says. “Why?”

Allison laughs humorlessly, pulling into the parking lot of an Italian restaurant. “Why do you think? It wasn’t supposed to become public knowledge.”

She climbs out of the car before Neil can respond, slamming the door behind her.

The drive back to campus is largely devoid of conversation, as Allison had cranked up the radio as soon as they got back in the car, but she can see Neil shooting glances at her out of the corner of her eye. She reaches to change the station for the seventh time, but Neil stops her with a sigh, tugging her hand away from the dash and turning off the music.

“Allison,” he says, hesitant. “Are you…okay?”

“Of course I am, I’m about to stuff my face with garlic bread,” she says breezily. “You?”

“Allison.”

“What?”

Neil sighs again, looking frustrated. “You didn’t have to stop seeing Kevin because me and Andrew found out.”

“I was never _seeing Kevin_ ,” Allison says. “How low do you think my standards are? It was just sex.”

“Then why did you stop?”

“Because we broke a rule,” she snaps, and then wishes she hadn’t. Neil looks openly curious now, turned halfway around in the passenger seat to stare at her.

“A rule?” he asks.

Allison tightens her grip on the steering wheel and curses the slow-moving van in front of her. She’s already over this conversation. “Yeah, a rule,” she says. “We made some, and telling other people broke one.”

“Technically, you didn’t tell us,” Neil says. “We noticed on our own.”

“Right, because that’s so much better,” Allison says. “Either way, the result is the same. Nobody was supposed to find out, and they did, so it’s over now.”

Neil stays quiet until the Palmetto State campus comes into view, and then he says, sounding uncomfortable, “You know, Andrew and I started out as ‘just sex’ too.”

“Oh, you mean that’s not all it is now?” Allison says snidely, and immediately regrets it. She sighs. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

Neil shrugs, unoffended. “It’s fine. I know what everyone thinks.”

“No, it’s not fine,” she says, because she knows how much it bothers Neil that the majority of the Foxes don’t believe Andrew to be capable of emotion. She might have sided with them, once, but it’s grown impossible to deny that whatever Neil and Andrew have is real and lasting. “I know you guys are more than just a hook-up, but Neil—that’s not what’s going on here, Kevin and I aren’t like that.”

“Are you sure?”

Neil’s voice is quiet, knowing. Allison hates it, hates the way he’s doing his best to poke holes in her certainty that she’d made the right decision. She hates the lump in her throat corroborating Neil’s unspoken accusation.

“Positive,” she chirps, parking in front of the court. “Now help me grab these bags, I’m starving.”

——————————

_Neil says he won’t say anything. neither will andrew_

_That’s good._

——————————

Kevin grits his teeth and steals the ball, twisting away from Neil to charge down the court. 

He shoots on goal and Andrew is a fraction too slow to block him, but there’s no satisfaction in the thud of the ball against the wall. Kevin wants to see red, wants to hammer the goal until the whole court is lit up in blazing crimson victory. He wants the burning in his chest to have some sort of quantifiable outlet.

They set up at half-court, and Neil takes off running. Kevin tears after him, and Neil is fast, but Kevin is angry, and he’s slamming into Neil before either of one them notices Kevin’s caught up to him.

It’s a hard hit, and Neil goes sprawling, landing on his back with a groan. “What the _fuck_?” he snaps, but Kevin is too busy firing at Andrew to pay him any attention. He scores, but then, that’s probably because Andrew is already halfway out of the goal, letting his racquet clatter to the ground.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Kevin asks, irate, but Andrew brushes by him without a word. Kevin turns to demand an answer, but stops short as he realizes Neil is still on the ground. As he watches, Neil tries to shove himself up on his elbows, but collapses halfway through the attempt. He settles for glaring daggers at Kevin as Andrew reaches him.

“Are you alright?” Kevin asks. The wild rage in his chest is still clawing at his lungs, but it’s been choked back somewhat by uneasy concern.

Andrew doesn’t turn around, but Neil huffs and says, “Oh, yeah, I’m _great_.”

“Neil,” Andrew says, and Neil sighs, softening. 

“I’m fine. Just winded.”

“Don’t downplay it if you’re injured,” Kevin says stiffly, a thread of guilt winding through his stomach.

“I’m not injured, I’m pissed,” Neil snaps. “What the fuck was that, Kevin?”

“I blocked you. I didn’t mean to hit you so hard, but it happens in a contact sport.”

Neil scoffs. “Right, so we’re going to pretend we don’t know why you’re being even more obnoxious than usual?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kevin says, struggling to keep from shouting. “But you are not practicing any more tonight. Andrew, help him to the bench, and then get back in goal. We’re running the last play again.”

“No,” Andrew says. “We’re done here. Clean up your mess and get in the car.”

“We are not _done here_ —”

“If you don’t get out now, I will leave you here and you can walk back to the dorm.”

“Andrew,” Neil says quietly. “I’m okay.”

“Shut up,” Andrew tells him, and helps him to his feet. 

Neil doesn’t bother protesting as Andrew leads him to the locker room. Kevin stares after them for a moment, then starts collecting their abandoned racquets. 

——————————

_Happy birthday loser_

_Hope you enjoy your present ;)_

_How many mugs do you think I need?_

_And, “Queen Biatch?” Really? Are you custom ordering these?_

_You’re welcome asshole_

_Thanks, Allison._

——————————

They beat the Longhorns 9-5.

Matt swings Allison into a hug as soon as he sets Dan back on the ground, and she laughs as he spins her around before releasing her to Dan and Renee. He gets ahold of Neil before he can make it to the goal to rope Andrew into the celebration, hefting him up with comic ease. Allison can barely see through the tangle of Foxes, but she catches sight of Aaron’s cheerleader running toward him, tossing her pom-poms to the ground before she leaps at him. Nicky is screaming something indistinct over the noise of the crowd, shaking Kevin’s shoulders. Kevin smiles that exhausted, jubilant grin that he only ever displays over a victory, and Allison is flushed and breathless with laughter and forgets to look away before he meets her gaze.

She flashes him a thumbs-up behind Renee’s back, and it’s pathetically inadequate, but his smile softens around the edges and he nods at her.

 _Good game_ , he mouths, and Allison buries her face in Dan’s shoulder.

“Alright,” Wymack says when they’ve all gathered in the away locker room. “We’ve got a long bus ride ahead, so I won’t make you go over areas of improvement until Monday. Hit the showers and be on the bus in half an hour. Good job out there tonight.”

The second he’s out of earshot, Kevin tears into the defense line.

“Aaron, you need to work on your rebound time, you’re slow out there,” he says. “Nicky, you’ve got to start pulling your weight when you’re in. Andrew can’t clean up after all your mistakes. Brian—”

“God, Kevin, give it a rest,” Dan says. “I don’t know if you realized, but we won tonight. Be excited.”

“I’ll be excited when our backliners stop holding us back,” he says coolly. Nicky just rolls his eyes, but Aaron’s bristling, and Allison can see the fight brewing.

“He’s right,” Allison says, and everyone’s gazes snap to her. She swallows the rush of hesitance and adds, “Look, we’re finally champions. That means we have to be better. I won’t have my last year go up in smoke because half the team doesn’t want to pull their weight.”

A few of the freshmen look chastened, but most of the older Foxes are still staring at her in shock. Allison thinks their dumbfounded expressions are a little much, honestly; she knows she doesn’t agree with Kevin all that often, but she’s right about this and they all know it. 

Andrew, of course, doesn’t react; next to him, Neil looks like he’s fighting back a smirk. She carefully avoids Kevin’s eyes, unwilling to see his reaction.

“Look, you don’t get to order me around,” Aaron says, glaring at her. “Kevin doesn’t either, but at least he can actually play. I don’t know where you get off lecturing us.”

“You really want to go there? Because—”

“Allison outperformed most of your defense line tonight,” Kevin interrupts, and she whips her head around to stare at him. “You might not have to listen to her, but you’d be better off for it.”

“You do have to listen to me,” Dan says, stepping between Kevin and Aaron. “And I say that for now, both of you need to calm the hell down and celebrate the fact that, _oh yeah_ , we _won_.”

Aaron shakes his head in disgust and storms away to shower. The rest of the team disperses to do the same, but Nicky pauses before following his cousin.

“Kevin, if I agree with you sometime, will you be nicer to me?” he asks.

Kevin glares at him, and Nicky chuckles as he walks away, leaving Allison alone with Kevin for the first time since Neil and Andrew called them out on their non-relationship.

“I didn’t need your help,” Allison says finally.

Kevin holds her gaze. “I didn’t need yours.”

“No,” she agrees, and moves to join the rest of the team in the showers. She’s exhausted, and sweaty, and more than a little drained, and she really wants to get out of this school and fall asleep on the bus.

Kevin catches her arm, but drops it as soon as she stops. She raises an eyebrow at him.

“You did well tonight,” he says quietly. “I meant what I said to Aaron.”

“So did I,” she says. “But you don’t need me to inflate your ego.”

Kevin laughs as she heads for the showers, and Allison tries not to think about how praising her performance is probably the most heartfelt compliment Kevin knows how to give.

She smiles at her feet, wiping the expression off her face before anyone can see.

——————————

_If u don’t stop lecturing offense i think neil might stab u_

_He won’t. There are too many witnesses._

_Good luck w/ that, i’m going to sleep. try not to die before i wake up_

_Your sleep schedule is going to get thrown off._

_Zzzzzzzzzz goodnight kevin_

——————————

No one discusses it, but the whole team is on edge as February turns into March. Kevin knows Neil is more affected than he’s letting on—he’s been woken several times in the past week by the sounds of Andrew talking a panicked Neil down from violent nightmares—but at practice, the only indication he gives of his agitation is an increased urgency on the court. 

Even the freshmen pick up on the obvious tension. Most of them don’t dare to say anything, having witnessed bits and pieces of last year’s ordeal in Baltimore on the news, but Jack relishes in the opportunity to create strife, tugging at the team’s frayed nerves every chance he gets.

“Oops,” he says after violently checking Neil during a practice scrimmage. “My bad.”

Neil just glares at him as Dan calls a time-out and Nicky rushes to help him up. 

“Jack, stop trying to injure your teammates,” Dan says, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“What? It wasn’t that bad.” Jack smirks. “Couldn’t possibly have hurt more than that whole mess.”

He gestures at the burn scars on Neil’s cheek. “Hey, is it true your daddy gave you those with a lighter? That’s pretty rough. And they ruined your tattoo, too!”

“Jack,” Dan snaps. Matt, Nicky, and Allison all look ready to lunge at Jack, and Kevin takes a small step back. “That is _enough_. Either stop antagonizing your vice-captain or get the hell off this court, but I don’t want to hear another word out of you that isn’t ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for the rest of practice. Understand?”

“It’s fine, Dan,” Neil says before Jack can argue. “As Jack so kindly pointed out, I’ve dealt with far worse than some meaningless taunts from an insecure little boy with anger issues.”

Kevin can tell Jack is gearing up to spit more vitriol at Neil, so he carefully steps between them. 

“If Neil’s fine, we should restart the game,” he says. “The other teams aren’t wasting valuable practice time on personal drama and neither should we.”

He gets a few glares for that, but Dan nods curtly before calling for starting positions, and it’s enough to diffuse some of the anger radiating from Jack. 

Kevin wonders if anyone will be able to prevent it from exploding when it reaches a boiling point.

As it turns out, he doesn’t have to wait very long for an answer. Jack keeps his cool for the duration of practice, but he lets loose with a steady stream of taunts as soon as they make it to the foyer.

Kevin tunes most of it out. He won’t fight Neil’s battles for him; he knows Neil can handle himself, and if he couldn’t, Andrew or one of the upperclassmen would step in. 

He snaps back to attention at the sound of a body hitting the floor.

Neil shakes his hand out over Jack’s fallen form. Jack’s lip is bleeding, but Kevin can’t see any other obvious injuries.

“Ouch,” Neil says lightly, then crouches next to Jack. His words are low, but they echo in the shocked silence of the room. 

“You’re right,” he tells Jack. “I am a Wesninski. Do you know what that means?” He doesn’t give Jack the chance to respond. “It means I know how to hurt you. Badly, if I want. And I’ve got to say, you’re really making me want to.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Jack spits, even though his eyes are wide and panicked.

Neil smiles, but it’s not a kind expression. It’s cruel and edged with danger, and Kevin sees more than one of the freshmen back away slightly. 

“You should be,” Neil says. “You know so much about my past? Then you must know it didn’t end well for the last people who tried to hurt me.”

He taps the scars on his cheek, and his razor-sharp grin turns mocking. “I’m only going to say this once, so pay attention. I don’t know what your sob story is and I don’t care, but trust me when I say that I’ve survived things and people deadlier than you could dream up in your worst nightmares. So cut the bullshit, because I ran out of patience for your pathetic attempts at intimidation months ago. I’m going to be your captain next year whether you like it or not, so get your act together or I swear to god I will bench you until I graduate.”

Neil stands, examines his knuckles, and heads for the locker room without so much as a glance at anyone else. Andrew follows him immediately, but the rest of the Foxes linger, frozen with shock.

“Is it wrong that I want to clap?” Nicky asks. “Because I feel like I should clap.”

“Go ahead,” Allison says, sneering down at Jack.

Jack scrambles to his feet, flushed with humiliation and rage. “Fuck off.”

Dan laughs quietly, devoid of humor. “This is bringing back memories.”

“Yeah,” Matt says. “Neil’s greatest takedowns. They’re all rushing back to me now.”

“We could rank them,” Nicky suggests. “I vote for the fall banquet rant as number one.”

Dan shakes her head, and the team begins to scatter. Jack turns to Kevin, looking equal parts furious and imploring.

“ _Why_ do you put up with him?” he demands. “He’s not nearly talented enough to get away with—” he gestures wildly “—all that. You could have any striker in the country. Why _him_?”

Kevin forces down his irritation and looks Jack in the eyes. “Because no matter how hard you work, you will never be worth half as much to this court as Neil,” he says evenly. “I’d suggest you take his advice and pull yourself together before you get permanently benched and we find ourselves looking for a replacement.”

Jack wilts slightly and turns to Dan. “You can’t bench me forever.”

“Wanna bet?” Allison grins wickedly. Kevin tries not to stare at her and almost succeeds.

“Oh, you don’t want to do that,” Dan says, amused. “Allison never loses a bet.”

“I wouldn’t push it,” Matt warns. “Neil and Kevin held the line on their own last year and we won championships.”

Kevin turns away, done with this conversation. He hears Allison say, “Exactly. If anyone’s expendable here, it’s you, Jackie-boy,” and fights down a grin.

——————————

_U owe me money, day_

_Fuck you._

_Aw don’t be a sore loser. i’ll collect my fifty at your earliest convenience_

_Fucking Neil._

——————————

Andrew invites the Foxes back to Eden’s Twilight.

Well, technically, Matt insisted on celebrating Neil finally “putting on his captain hat” and Dan asked Neil to convince Andrew to let them come out with him, but the end result is that all the Foxes, minus the freshmen, are crowded into a corner booth at Eden’s on Friday night.

“To Neil!” Nicky cries, and they all knock back their shots. 

Allison licks tequila off her lips and smirks at Neil. “Our little rookie is all grown up. I think I might cry.”

“Please don’t,” Neil says, looking supremely uncomfortable. Allison is tempted to bring out the waterworks, just to see Neil’s reaction, but she refrains.

“Think of your eyeliner,” Dan warns, a smile tugging at her lips, and Allison scoffs.

“It’s waterproof, obviously,” she says. “What do you take me for, a heathen?”

Dan snorts with laughter and Renee smiles into her soda. Neil looks somewhat relieved, and Andrew levels a flat stare at him, eliciting a shrug from Neil. Allison glances around the table, taking quick count of how many empty glasses litter the table, and digs an elbow into Nicky’s side.

“Move,” she says. “Next round’s on me.”

Nicky cheers as he slides out of the booth to let her out and Matt toasts her with what’s left of his drink. Allison sketches a mocking bow before making her way to the bar.

She drums her fingers against the bartop until the cousins’ favorite bartender—Robert, maybe?—notices her and comes to take her order. He squints at her thoughtfully, and she jerks a thumb over her shoulder to the rest of the Foxes. The bartender’s face lights in realization and he grins.

“I knew I recognized you,” he says. “The usual, then?”

“Sure,” Allison says, and then adds, “No drugs.”

She doesn’t think Andrew has any plans to drug the team, but who knows what his “usual” entails? Maybe the bartender assumes this is another one of Andrew’s tests, like the outings he dragged Neil and Matt on.

The bartender laughs as he begins preparing a new tray of drinks. “Paranoid much? No worries, these are all clean.”

“Not paranoid, just not stupid.”

Accepting the tray, Allison hands over her credit card and eyes the drinks suspiciously; she’s more than a little curious as to how Andrew manages to pay for this much alcohol on a regular basis. She picks up one of the more innocuous-looking concoctions and takes a sip. _Not bad_ , she thinks idly.

She feels the hand on her back before she notices that someone has sidled up to her and drops her glass on the counter to shrug it off. “Back off,” she snaps, turning to get a better look at the man.

He’s handsome enough in a bland, cookie-cutter sort of way, but everything about him, from his over-styled hair to the leer on his face, screams _douchebag_ louder than the electronic music blasting through the club.

“Whoa,” he says, raising his hands. “Easy there, no harm done.”

Allison rolls her eyes, glancing over her shoulder at the bartender. Honestly, how long does it take to run a credit card? It hasn’t been declined; she knows that for a fact.

“Not interested,” she says.

The man pouts in a way that’s probably supposed to be alluring. “Aw, don’t be like that. Look, I didn’t mean to offend you. Let me buy you a drink to make up for it, and we can start over.”

“No thanks.”

He moves closer, and Allison fights down the urge to smack him away. She doesn’t want to instigate a fight unless it’s necessary, but she has no qualms about glaring at him as he leans into her space.

“You know, you’re a very beautiful girl,” he says, and Allison is spared from gagging by maybe-Robert’s return. He hands over her credit card, but she waves off the receipt and grabs the tray, collecting her abandoned drink and adding it to the others.

“ _Thank_ you,” she tells the bartender. To the man next to her, she adds, “Yes, I do know. Now kindly fuck off, would you?”

She walks away to the sound of the bartender’s laughter.

The Foxes cheer when she returns to distribute their drinks. “Jesus, Allison, how much did this cost?” Matt asks, staring at the assortment of glasses.

“Who knows?” Allison says, sliding back into the booth. “Let’s drink, I want to hit the dance floor.”

She feels Kevin’s eyes on her and wonders abruptly if her interaction with the sleaze at the bar was visible from their table. She wonders if the heat in his gaze is anger, or jealousy, or concern.

It doesn’t matter. Kevin shouldn’t be feeling any of those things for her anymore. He never should have felt them at all, even when they were still—doing whatever they were doing.

“To being filthy rich,” Dan says wryly, and they all raise their glasses.

“Don’t.”

They all glance at Andrew, but Andrew’s eyes are on Allison. 

“What?” she asks. 

Andrew doesn’t bother responding. He glances at the bar, and when they all follow his gaze, Kevin swears. Allison looks between them quizzically, but Kevin’s hand shoots out to grab her wrist.

“Don’t,” he tells her, softer than Andrew but more insistent. “Don’t drink that.”

His face is intent, eyes wide and lips pressed into a thin line. Allison tries to look away and fails.

She places the glass back on the table, eyeing the faint ring her lipstick left behind when she tested it at the bar, and says, “Explanation, please.”

“It’s drugged,” Neil says, like he’s just realized. “Shit.”

Matt glares at Andrew. “Did you do this?”

Andrew looks back at him, blank-faced, and Neil bristles next to him. “If he told Roland to drug Allison, why would he stop her from drinking it? Of course he didn’t do it.”

“It wasn’t Andrew,” Kevin says, releasing her wrist. Allison hadn’t realized he was still holding it. “It was that guy at the bar.”

“What guy?” Dan asks immediately, and she, Matt, and Renee all crane their necks to try and catch sight of him. He’s not at the bar anymore, though, and they turn back to Allison like she might know where to find him.

“No one,” she says, nausea twisting in her stomach at the thought of how close she’d come to being stripped of her own control. “Just some creep who couldn’t take no for an answer.”

She looks at Andrew. “Did you see him spike any other drinks, or just mine?”

He doesn’t answer, but reaches for one of the drinks she’d bought and drains it without hesitation. Neil stares at him like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, but when Andrew just blinks back at him, he looks at Allison and says, “They’re safe.”

Dan and Matt eye their own drinks suspiciously, but take cautious sips anyway. Aaron and Nicky take Neil at his word and down a shot each. Allison glances from Kevin, who’s still watching her, to the rest of the upperclassmen and stands abruptly.

“I’m going to dance,” she says. Nicky knocks back another drink and moves to join her. Before they can step away from the table, though, Renee catches Allison’s hand.

“I’m sorry I didn’t notice,” she says quietly. “I should have been paying attention.”

Allison frowns. She knows Renee feels responsible for the upperclassmen’s safety, but she couldn’t possibly have guessed that someone would try to drug her. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Allison says as lightly as she can manage. “Andrew was.”

She looks over at Andrew and forces the words out. “Thank you.” 

He flicks a glance at her, ostensibly uninterested, but the fact that he acknowledged her at all is telling. Neil catches it too—of course he does—and grins up at Allison. She smiles back before returning her attention to Renee.

“I’m okay, really.” 

Renee squeezes her hand, then releases her to join Nicky on the dance floor.

Nicky is good company, loud and enthusiastic and an utterly hopeless dancer. Allison laughs until her throat is sore, letting him spin her around with no regard for the other patrons casting dirty looks at her when she careens into them.

Aaron and Renee eventually find them in the crowd, and they dance until Allison is parched and exhausted.

“I’m getting a drink,” she shouts, and she’s not sure if any of them can actually hear her over the music, but she gets a thumbs-up from Renee and a sloppy wave from Nicky, so she turns and begins weaving her way through the crowd. 

Someone slams into her, and she almost topples over, her feet aching in her four-inch heels. “Watch it,” she snaps, then catches sight of her assailant and blinks. “Kevin?”

“Allison,” he says, equally startled. 

“What are you—”

Kevin’s face darkens an instant before Allison feels an arm thrown over her shoulder. “Hey, gorgeous,” a voice purrs, close to her ear, and a chill runs through her.

Allison ducks out from under the arm and turns to face the same man who accosted her at the bar. He doesn’t bother to disguise the hungry look he casts over her body, and Allison realizes with a jolt of disgust that he must not realize she didn't ingest the drugs he slipped into her drink.

“Hey, asshole,” she says, and confusion sweeps over the man’s face at her words and distinctly unfriendly tone. Half a second later, the confusion gives way to anger, and he steps toward her. 

“You little bitch,” he sneers. “You go out dressed like a whore, looking for attention, and then—”

Kevin’s fist in his face cuts off his tirade. Allison gapes as he shakes out his hand and the man starts cursing. 

“Shit,” she says, and yanks Kevin back before he can go after him again or the man can try to hit back. She can tell when the man realizes they’re out of reach, because he starts yelling about someone starting a fight, straining to be heard over the loud music.

“Shit,” she repeats, when the crowd parts just enough for her to see a bouncer making his way through the throng of people to investigate the commotion. “Come with me.”

There’s a hallway at the rear of the club, low-ceilinged and poorly lit. Allison follows it until they reach a bathroom, then shoves Kevin inside.

“This is disgusting,” she says, casting her gaze around the small, dingy space, then rounds on Kevin. There’s not much room to maneuver, and she’s careful to avoid touching him. “What the fuck was that? Are you trying to get kicked out?”

Kevin glares at her. “He was saying—”

“I know what he was saying,” Allison snaps. “Spoiler alert, it’s not exactly a new thing. He wasn’t saying anything I haven’t heard dozens of times before. You didn’t need to intervene.”

“You’ve heard that before,” Kevin echoes. He looks stricken, and Allison swallows, hard.

“That can’t possibly come as a surprise.”

“You shouldn’t have,” Kevin says. He’s speaking quietly, but there’s real anger behind the words. “No one should say that shit to you.”

“They shouldn’t say that shit to anybody,” Allison says, exhaustion flooding through her anew now that the adrenaline of the near-fight is starting to fade. “But I don’t need to tell you that the world isn’t fair.”

“No,” he says, but he’s looking at Allison in a way that makes her think they’re not just talking about casual sexism anymore. “It’s not.”

Allison can’t hold his gaze without doing something she’ll regret, so she looks away, her gaze falling on the paper towel dispenser. “Give me your hand.”

Kevin extends his hand without hesitation. His left hand, Allison realizes with a spike of fear. Cleaning him up was the first distraction she seized on, but now she grabs his wrist with real concern, turning his hand over to check for injuries.

Two of his knuckles are split, but barely. There’s not much blood, and Allison lets out a sigh of relief, but it gets lost somewhere in her throat and she nearly chokes on it.

“Fuck, Kevin,” she manages. “You could’ve—why would you—”

“I don’t know,” he says, and she thinks he might be lying. To her, or himself, or both of them. Or maybe he’s telling the truth, maybe he doesn’t know; maybe he doesn’t want to know, like Allison, who’s fighting not to give name to the hands clenching around her lungs and the words thrumming against the back of her throat.

“Fuck,” she says again, and then she’s kissing him, the spare inches between them dissolved into heat and urgency and the slide of Kevin’s hands on her face, the mess of his hair between her fingers, the breath she’s been holding for weeks and now releases into Kevin’s mouth.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” she murmurs when they break apart.

Kevin leans his forehead against hers and says, “Are we doing this?”

Allison stares back at him. There’s an obvious answer to that question, playful and evasive and _I would think you’d be able to tell_ , but she doesn’t think he’s speaking literally.

“We shouldn’t,” she says again. It’s not an answer, and Kevin pulls away slightly, giving her an exasperated look.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I know,” Allison says, and they stand in silence for a few long moments.

Allison thinks about the months they spent falling in and out of each other’s beds. She thinks about strings of messages and stolen glances and Kevin’s rare smile and rarer laugh. She thinks about Neil, about _are you sure_ , about the last few weeks of nothing where there used to be something, or maybe something where there should have been nothing.

“We’ll need a new set of rules,” Allison says, and Kevin starts. He stares at her, disbelieving, and Allison fights down the sudden urge to grin. “I kind of broke the biggest one, last time.”

“I did too,” Kevin says.

Allison’s composure breaks, and she starts to smile, but—

“Wait, we are talking about the same rule, right? Because I didn’t fuck anyone else, if that’s what you’re talking about—”

“Allison,” Kevin interrupts. “That’s not the rule I meant.”

“Oh. Okay. Good.”

Kevin smirks, just a little. “Good?”

He kisses her before she can muster up a properly scathing and indifferent retort. She lets him, because she’s done trying to pretend she didn’t miss this. Kevin breaks away too quickly and says, “No rules.”

“What?” Allison stares at him. As she watches, the hesitation melts off Kevin’s face and determination washes over him.

“No rules this time,” he says. “All or nothing.”

Allison hears the slight tremor in his voice, watches his throat bob as he swallows. 

“Counter-offer,” she says. “I’m good with ‘all,’ but I’m so not ready to deal with the others freaking out, are you?”

Kevin laughs, a breathless, relieved sound that makes Allison’s lips quirk. “Fine,” he says. “Just the one rule, then.”

“Not a dealbreaker, though,” Allison clarifies, and Kevin nods immediately.

“What do you want to tell them, then?”

Allison shrugs. “Nothing. They all think I’m sleeping with someone anyway. I’ll just stop denying it and let them agonize over who it is. Your roommates already know, remember? We can just use your dorm if we don’t want to sneak around.”

“Neil,” Kevin says, “is going to be insufferable. He has not been subtle bringing you up recently.”

“That’s your problem. I’m not the one who has to live with him.”

She fumbles for a paper towel and wets it in the sink. Kevin holds out his hand without her asking, and she dabs at the cuts on his knuckles, not bothering to be gentle.

“Fuck, Allison,” he hisses.

“Your discomfort is entirely your fault.”

Satisfied, she tosses the paper towel in the trash can and meets Kevin’s eyes. “Ready?”

Kevin pokes his head out of the bathroom to check for passerby, then motions for Allison to follow him. 

Neil and Andrew are the only ones at the table when they get close enough to scope it out, so they don’t bother splitting up before they reach it. Allison slides in next to Neil, ignoring the almost-annoyed look Andrew shoots her, and Kevin follows her into the booth, pressing close enough that she can feel the heat of him along her arm.

Neil’s eyes travel along the points of contact between their bodies, alighting on the smudged lipstick around Kevin’s mouth. He grins, sharp and smug. 

“Well, this is cozy,” he says, and nods at the spot of lipstick. “You’ve got a little something there, Kevin.”

“Fuck off, Neil,” Kevin says lightly, and reaches for a napkin.

——————————

_Neil and Andrew skipped town, so no night practice. Come over?_

_Buy me dinner first and then i’ll consider it_

_See you at seven._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's definitely going to be another installment of this series (hopefully it won't get as long as this one?? i don't trust myself anymore) so stay tuned, my fellow Kevin/Allison junkies :)
> 
> Thank you for reading! Stay fabulous.
> 
> xoxo,
> 
> Istalria


End file.
